The Road to an Affair

In some cases people are serial adulterers. They are hedonists who are only interested in themselves, and they don’t care about who they hurt in the process. Basically they are narcissistic and selfish, and just overall not nice people.

But stats say that anywhere from 20-40% of people have affairs at some point. That many people can’t ALL be terrible human beings.

People generally don’t advertise when there has been an affair in their relationship, but often it gets out. And when friends and family find out that someone they know had an affair they are often stunned. A common reaction is:

He/she had an affair? I never thought they were the sort of person who would do that. I guess I didn’t know them that well after all.

This sort of reaction isn’t just isolated to outside observers though, as the betrayed partner is often in a state of shock.

And not only is the betrayed partner shocked, but often the person who HAD the affair is also shocked. Many people who have affairs are somewhat horrified with themselves both during and after. They never thought *they* would be the sort of person to have an affair.

Yet they did.

And that leads them to realize that they aren’t who they thought they were either.

When you look at stories, there are a lot of common elements. Usually starting with long term relationships that are “in a rut”, where the passion is gone or fading. But sadly, that happens to most of us over time.

So is everyone at risk of having an affair? Well, even if 40% of people do, 60% don’t. So are there actually some common characteristics of people that make them more susceptible? I believe there are.

In this post I want to explore that, as well as provide some thoughts for those who are either having an affair or have thought about it.

The Myth

I think the idea that sexual needs not being met leads to an affair is only partially true. Yeah, if your sexual needs aren’t being met it will spill out into the rest of the relationship. But I actually think that’s a symptom and not a cause.

I believe affairs are much more frequently about emotional needs and connection. And when you feel emotionally connected then sex is a natural result of that.

So people are in relationships that are in a rut, and the emotional connection has broken down. They meet someone and connect emotionally, and don’t actually intend for it to go any further. But once that emotional connection has been made, nature takes over.

In fact, a recent British survey on affairs found that for both men and women, attention and emotional connection were among the leading reasons for affairs. Here are the top three reasons, broken down by gender:

I felt flattered by the attention (men 35%, women 44%)

I felt emotionally deprived in my relationship (men 29%, women 43%)

I was dissatisfied with my sex life (men 32%, women 15%)

Note the difference between men and women when it comes to their sex life. Sex is twice as important to men than women. I suspect those numbers are skewed a bit by different perceptions around sex. For men, sex is often seen as symbol of the relationship, so dissatisfaction with a sex life is dissatisfaction with the relationship. For both genders however sex is only part of the reason behind an affair, and attention and emotional connection are more significant factors.

When people say they didn’t mean for an affair to happen or it was a mistake, I think there is some truth to that. They probably weren’t looking for an affair. They were actually looking for attention and an emotional connection that was lacking in their own relationship.

They just didn’t mean for it to go as far as it did. But by pursuing a friendship/relationship after they knew feelings were developing, they are completely at fault.

The Cheaters Perspective

In the blogsphere you find many stories of relationships broken by affairs, mostly from the perspective of the betrayed spouse. A few months back I found a blog written by a guy on the other side of the fence; someone who betrayed his wife and is now trying to deal with the fallout from his decisions.

An affair is always wrong – I will never suggest otherwise. But although we may not choose to have affairs, the pain and loneliness of a stagnant relationship is something I suspect many couples in long term relationship can relate to.

In his blog he starts with the affair and it’s ongoing aftermath, and slowly peels back different layers of his history. But for purposes of telling his story here I will try to stitch together a few pieces in some degree of chronological order (The sections below in blue are reprinted from his site with permission).

The Breakdown of the Marriage

Up until this point in our marriage we only really ever fought about one topic. Sex. I have a higher drive than she does and so it has always caused friction. I would make an advance, sometimes I would handle it poorly and sulk for a short time but often times I just would leave the bedroom to watch TV or something else. Just so I would not bother her. Then she would feel extremely guilty and we would end up doing it in the morning half the time or maybe the next week. Either way neither of us ever felt good about the situation.

After a few years of this, I started to believe that even when she accepted my advances she was just doing it to get her “wifely duties” completed. It wasn’t because she wanted me or even sex for that matter. It was very hard for me to deal with but I did what I thought was best. First I assumed I must suck at sex. I must be awful because I love how she makes me feel and if I don’t make her feel this way then I could see why she doesn’t want me.

I would try and talk to her about it but it usually ended up having the focus about sex and not just my wanting to know that she did indeed want me around. Then she would feel guilty and then try to have sex with me and then I did not want it because it was only because she felt guilty, not because she wanted me. It was a frustrating cycle. I don’t know if you can imagine but having the only person you have known and loved constantly reject you and avoid you will destroy you. She was everything I had ever known.

My response was to keep slowly pulling out of our marriage. I stopped going out of my way to work on us. I stopped reading and researching ways to make your marriage better and closer. Instead I just avoided alone time. We stopped having sex but every couple of months and it was nothing spectacular.

The Rise of the Affair

One day as I was driving home from my commute I came across an app to meet other people. I could view peoples pictures and decide if they were a match for me. After a couple of weeks I had a few dozen matches of people I thought were out of my league. I would chat with a few here and there but one drew me in particular. She was funny and cute and we seemed to really have a good time chatting back and forth. We talked for a few months and I noticed I was much more pleasant at home. I felt good about myself because my ego was being fed. I was happier and even my kids noticed it.

I thought this was a perfect setup. I really believed I had no intention of ever meeting her and she never pushed to meet me. We were both content with what we were getting. It seemed to take the edge off my marital problems and my wife and I were getting along better. We still were not very active in the bedroom but when she denied me it wasn’t such a big deal because I knew there was at least someone else who found me attractive and good company.

But it also started a destructive dialog in my head. It was something like:

“These women find you funny and attractive but your own wife doesn’t.”

“She won’t be intimate with you because she does not find you good-looking.”

“You are just the father of her children and her partner but you will never be the love of her life and you can never make her happy.”

These thoughts or ones similar would just pour through my mind. I couldn’t get them to stop.

Exciting and New

We kept sharing more and more personal information with each other. This went on for a days and I felt like we really had a connection. She kept telling me how easy it was to talk to me and how I can make her feel so safe that she can share most anything with me. She told me that she has not felt this at ease with anyone before. I told her that I felt the same. I was a lot less guarded around her and felt like I could say anything and it would not surprise her or scare her away. I was thinking how much different she was than my wife. How exciting, how refreshing. I did not feel judged, just accepted. I felt like she really understood me and liked me for who I was, even though she truly did not know who I was yet.

I think this led to a lot of the attraction I felt. It was new and exciting and she was interested in everything I had to say. We were sharing and exploring each other intellectually and emotionally. I really believe that is what really hooked me, it had been a long time since someone made me feel this way and I wasn’t even sure if I actually felt this excited and close to my wife all those years ago. Now in hindsight, I can say that this is probably how I first started with my wife.

Crossing the Line

Now I have thought about this for a while, why did I finally decide to meet her again even though I was pretty sure deep down that I knew what I was getting into. I know on the surface I thought I could control myself. So really, the second time I was going to see this woman we would actually do it. No way! Not in a million years! Uggghhhh… (I guess on the surface I was old-fashioned, but deep down I knew. I really knew).

Ending the Affair

I was lonely and dying for attention, which is what led me to look for it else where. I did not do this looking for an affair, but just some attention that validated I was worth something. Then I met the other woman (OW), one thing led to another until I was in a full blown affair. It was euphoria when were together and agony when we were apart. This is what fed the illusion that it was such a great “relationship”. The reality was, it was just fantasy land and as I began to see her with everyday problems like us, the less and less I wanted to be with her.

I think I was finally really realizing what I had done. I was seeing that the OW was really just fantasy land and none of it was real. My wife helped me recognize this by her asking about the OW and why she was so perfect. I told her she wasn’t and if I decide to leave the marriage I am not running into her arms. She has a lot of problems that she would have to fix before I would let her around my kids. Once I told her this it pretty much shattered the fantasy that I had with her. I started seeing her with her problems and everyday trials just like everyone else.

I have tried to give excuses for why the affair happened. The reality is I am the one who made the decision to cheat. If I thought the marriage was that bad I should have left, not taken this route. I made that choice and she had nothing to do with that choice. I have to take responsibility and be a key component in both her recovery and my own.

Things to Learn

As I said earlier, cheating is always wrong. But generally, it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Most commonly, an affair is an attempt to fill gaps that are missing in a relationship. And attention is the number one thing both men and women are looking for.

They want to feel loved again, and they want to feel valued. In the story above, the guy turned to “dating apps” for the attention he felt was missing in his relationship. This is not uncommon.

I recently read an article on Tindr that found 36% of users are actually married, and an additional 12% are in a “committed” relationship. That’s almost ½ of all users who are probably not looking for an actual relationship. So what are they looking for?

Sex? Probably. An ego boost? Definitely. But mostly, attention.

It’s a sad commentary that in many relationships, we often do a poor job of making our partners feel loved and valued. And eventually, they look elsewhere for the attention that is missing.

In a prior post I talk about some of the reasons I think this happens. Basically I think we get too caught up in every day life, and we stop making our partners a priority. After all, they will always be there, right? Thing is, when you stop making the other person a priority they start to feel it. And it hurts.

Some people won’t like this, but I believe in relationships damaged by an affair the partner who was cheated on does hold some of the blame. I’m not suggesting it’s 50/50 or anything, and they aren’t the ones who cheated. But in most cases they contributed to the conditions that led to affair. Unless they recognize their own role in the breakdown of the relationship (whatever it may be), they will never be able to heal and move forward.

Life does get busy. Jobs, kids, house maintenance, personal lives etc. But in order for a relationship to survive, it needs maintenance. It needs time, and effort put into it. And it can’t only come from one person. Both members of the relationship need to feel valued, and loved.

When we subconsciously think “I’m married now, I don’t need to try”, problems will invariably set in. Relationships only stagnate when you let them.

For the person who has cheated (or is on that path), a few things to consider:

When the guy in the story above was on the dating app, it felt good. He was getting the attention from other women that he wasn’t getting from his wife, and it made him question why? He came to his own conclusion:

What did they see that my wife didn’t? This question never went away. I could not get it out of my head. It would not go away. I was the same person wasn’t I? I looked the same, had the same personality, then why?

It is a funny question to me now. What did they see that my wife didn’t? I can answer it without a problem. They saw someone who had an interest in them. Who made them feel attractive and interesting. So they never saw me, they saw what I was giving them. So the real question I should have been asking myself was not “What did they see that my wife didn’t?” but “What I am giving them that I am not giving my wife?”.

Another thing to note is that an affair is rarely about our partners, or our relationships. It is about ourselves, and our coping mechanisms. As another person wrote after his affair:

I wish I’d known what love was. I craved feelings I labeled as love. Feelings that came from having someone I valued value me in return. It made me feel I was all that. In fact, the more I esteemed the other person, the stronger the effect. But, what I really loved was how they made me feel about myself. The reflection of my image in their eyes made me feel amazing. But love isn’t that feeling, rather it’s the grace my wife extended, not when I deserved it, but rather when I least deserved it.

One final thought.

People are often more susceptible to have affairs when they are dealing with things like depression, or if they have issues with self-esteem or self-love. If you struggle with loving yourself, external validation from others is needed. However it’s important to understand the following:

All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the world, can’t drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us we’re amazing, worthy and lovable, in order to feel good about ourselves, it is never enough. It goes into the bottomless pit where our inherent self-worth should be. It may feel like we are reaching out to receive love, but in actuality, we are seeking external noise to help drown out our negative core beliefs.”
― Jaeda DeWalt

Affairs are never the answer. They are a form of escapism, a way of running from the problems that relationships will face from time to time. Sure, the cheater gets an ego boost and some sexual release – which helps them feel better (for a time). But they don’t solve anything, and they don’t make things any better.

A better solution is effort. Communication. No matter where you are, and how deep the hole is you can always get out. But you need to want to.

The guy in the story realized that he felt good around other women because they were giving him attention. But that attention was in turn because of the attention he was providing to them. Attention that he had stopped giving his wife long ago.

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20 thoughts on “The Road to an Affair”

Reblogged this on La Flâ·ne·rie: Watching The World Go By and commented:
“Affairs are never the answer. They are a form of escapism, a way of running from the problems that relationships will face from time to time. Sure, the cheater gets and ego boost and some sexual release – which helps them feel better (for a time). But they don’t solve anything, and they don’t make things any better.”

I couldn’t agree more. I have witnessed so many people having affairs so many times and I can say that they have never been successful at it. Their problems get even worse than what they expected it to be.

I have been cheated on once before and because of it, I also tried cheating in return. I failed and I realized how horrible it would make you feel after. It’s like you’re never gonna forget it and you’ll feel guilty for the rest of your life.

It’s interesting that you mention about the external validation and it’s role in affairs. My issues have been stated in previous articles on this blog, so I can easily say that I too had a bottomless pit that needed, no craved, attention. What I found is that I would attach myself to anyone that would give me the attention that I longed for. And when I stopped getting attention from them, then I’d seek out somebody else who would.

The main point of this guy’s story and mine is that there is an ingrained desire to feel wanted and accepted for who we are. When that need is not met, then people will seek it out rather than working on building on the current relationship. It’s easier to find someone new rather than continuing with an existing person. There’s less effort that is needed in a new relationship than an existing one.

Another item is that the current partner is viewed as the problem, not the solution. The self doubts and fears that you’re not good enough contribute to this idea. For me it was an ever changing number of friends as I rarely had a friend that I’ve had for more than a couple of years.

We all need an early warning system where when we start looking for attention from somebody else other than our partner, it kicks in and stops us.

We all have egos. We all like to fell loved, valued and wanted. Anyone who says they don’t like feeling that way is probably not being honest with themselves.

However in some cases it goes from something we like, to something we need. When people don’t feel good about who they are, they NEED other people to make them feel good about themselves. That’s a high that can never be sustained though. Unless that thinking can be turned around, that’s a recipe for long term unhappiness.

It’s cliché, but loving yourself really is key to being able to experience healthy sustainable love. When people don’t, in relationships they are looking for someone to validate them and take care of them. When people do love themselves, they are looking for someone to enhance them and share their life with. It’s a pretty significant difference.

That said, we ALL need to do a better job of not taking our partners for granted. We all need to ensure we continue to prioritize our partners in our life. Yeah, sometimes stuff “gets in the way”. But in a relationship if you find yourself consistently feeling like you aren’t prioritized the relationship will suffer. That’s fact. It’s human nature. Yet we don’t seem to “get it”, and we continue to take our partners for granted. Pretty sad.

Yes, loving yourself is a key part of a healthy relationship. It was one of the first items I learnt in my therapy. The phrase that sticks with me is “How can you love someone if you don’t love yourself?”

I agree that making time for the relationship is important. As I like saying, I don’t have time, but I make time. I will make time for what is important in life. You can see what people value because that’s where they spend their time on.

Great summary, and reflects solidly with my experience. Many people suffer in the self-worth department, but some more acutely then others. Often, this can be traced back to family of origin issues such as, a never present work-a-holic father, an emotionally chastising mother, divorce, etc, etc. Their self-worth is like a bucket laced with holes. Not able to fill it themselves, they seek out validation from others, constantly. In a committed relationship, this constant seeking for validation tires out the other partner at some point, causing them to start retreating, so they are left with what they feel is the only choice available to them, seek validation from outside the relationship. In doing so they are not seeking an affair or sex, just someone to tell them they are worth something. But they get too close, cross boundaries and biology starts to take over. They can’t turn back because they can’t see where they are in reality, they are running on irrational thoughts about themselves, their primary relationship and the outside world. Those with the acute inability to boost their own self-worth are not able to just spontaneously change, it takes a lot of effort, years of effort to break down the mental pathways that were ingrained in their minds at early development and continually refreshed with habitual validation seeking and re-seeking. They likely will not decide to find help on their own, not until after an affair, or two, or when they recognize the self-defeating behavior is in them, not the outside world. I have an intelligent, beautiful wife, who’s bucket was laced with holes. My bucket wasn’t terribly solid either, but nothing like hers. Early in our relationship, after a couple years of being together, I began to run out of empathy for her constant need of validation. After her first affair, we both buried our heads and the sand, thinking it was just a stupid mistake. We didn’t see or understand any of the things outlined in your post, plus we both had this looming affair baggage we never really dealt with. As you can imagine, a couple years later, repeat, etc, etc – spare you the details. Many years have passed, and our relationship is better now than ever before, but it has taken work and a massive amount of commitment to change.. and good therapists. I still have some remaining baggage to deal with, which is why I relate so well with your blog – I just came across it the other day.

I’m very interested in human behavior and relationships, and I feel we make them so much harder than they need to be.

It seems relationships are often struggles between “me” and “we”. We go into them due to a desire for companionship. A desire for the fulfillment of our own needs. But in order for them to flourish, then need to become more than that. “We” has to supercede, or at least become as important as “me”. It’s not about sublimating your own personality for the relationship, but instead developing true empathy for each other. I see that as the height, the ideal we strive for. And some of us glimpse it occasionally, but remain stuck in “me”. What is this doing for me? How is this fulfilling my need? What am I missing?

I think we often have very unrealistic notions of what relationships are like. We set them up in our heads to be these amazing magical things. And they can be. But the other person is human too. With flaws, insecurities and problems of their own. People become disillusioned, and think is this it? Is there maybe something better out there.

But as you said, it starts within.

I’ve written a lot about coping mechanisms recently, and I think the heart of relationships problems relies with our coping mechanisms and how we are able to deal with others and the world around us. How we manage stress, conflict, and communication. Those things are all within US, they are areas where we can change, and grow. Instead we say “this is how I am, this is who I am”. And in the process this impact our relationships.

You mention buckets full of holes. I love that analogy. We all have holes in our buckets. Some more, and some less. And really, the holes don’t matter. What matters is our awareness of them. When we deny the holes and point to the holes in other peoples buckets we position ourselves for a lot of unhappiness.

I’ve also, within the last couple year, become very interested in human behavior and relationships – to the point of obsession, which has been my coping mechanism. I feel like I’m getting close to graduation though, ready to apply what I’ve learned and find other interesting topics – I just started sailing lessons.

I didn’t really have a magical view of relationships, perhaps for other people but not me. I had a rather unfortunate robotic view of them. Gotta have one because I feel alone, ok cool I found someone who likes me, now we’re in a committed relationship, I gotta get back to work, when I get home let’s have dinner in front of the TV and go to bed (with sex hopefully). Since that was my parents relationship, I’m pretty certain that’s where I picked that up from.

So different now.

Some of the holes will always remain, indeed that is true. Same goes for other vulnerabilities/sensitive points we may individually have. That was a difficult concept for both of us to come to grips with. Awareness and better ways of working around or with them, both individually and as a couple, is key.

I think we all start out with some pretty immature views of what a relationship is. And for some, those views never change (same as sex).

My views around relationships and sex have evolved a lot in the past few years. I’ve never thought of myself as selfish, but in retrospect how I approached a relationship was quite selfish. It was mostly about me, and how things impacted me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I was a jerk or anything and I cared very much about my wife. But my level of empathy was rooted in me. That’s something that has grown, and changed. And I would like to think that’s for the better.

As you said, some holes will always remain. But hopefully they get smaller over time.

I think you’ve hit on a lot of important points here. That most people that end up in an affair intended it. Some, yes, but not most. For whatever combination of abuse, neglect, emotional distance in their primary relationship, and perhaps some unhealthy inner flaws of their own, they are hungry to get whatever is missing in their lives filled. And you make one small compromise after another until astonishingly for some, you’re up to your neck and in over your head in an affair. That certainly was my story. I pursued it. I didn’t stop it. But once I was in it, I was very conflicted and in a full panic. And I agree, affairs are not the answer. They are corrosive. They are dangerous. And they almost never fill the void that you think they will. Good bit of stuff here, friend

Most of your sidebar is unused blank space. You should start a list of blogs you follow, for at least 3 reasons I can instantly think of: 1) It’s easy, and they’ve actually got it down to a couple of mouse clicks now, and the whole thing is over before you can blink. From there on, it works itself automatically, you don’t even have to manually add anyone as you go. 2) It will be the one thing on your site that’s not “all about you”; you’re “giving something back”. 3) A certain percentage of people will automatically reciprocate once they become aware that you have thrown up a link for them, most of the rest can be leveraged for the cost of a query. Then you are acquiring “inbound links” which are valuable not only for helping to drive traffic to your website but much more importantly for helping to pull your site up in the page search page rankings. I have come to believe the average blogger doesn’t have a clue when it comes to the immense value of inbound link acquisition. B it is n fact, monumentally important to the overall success or failure of your blog – and that’s a fact.

You can start with me. I will trade you out links if you’re agreeable. Just hit my site and look over toward the bottom of my left sidebar if you want to see what I’m talking about…

It’s nice to see a well rounded viewpoint on the topic. I am one that did in fact cheat on my husband once. Not a full blown affair (A one night thing not a long term thing) … but I see a lot of myself in what you’ve written. I was depressed, yes there were issues in our marriage at the time (back in 2008) …it certainly wasn’t about sex to me – but I was so disgusted with myself afterwards. Literally throwing up over my own behavior. I still sometimes start feeling like that when I dwell back on the memories too much. And even now when I talk about it people are taken aback that I would be so honest about it. But you know… not that I am advocating it of course, but this incident and the events afterwards helped to get our marriage back to a better place. That is not something that can happen for everyone – so don’t try this at home if you have martial problems folks!! – but I am lucky my husband forgave me then and after we had a big old fight, we were able to start picking up the pieces and work on our relationship… we’ll be married 12 years next week 🙂

Thanks for sharing your story. You mention something that I have heard about but not really touched on, and that is the idea that an affair can actually be a positive for a marriage.

Well, not the affair itself. That breaks trust and does a lot of damage.

But when an affair happens, it’s usually a symptom of underlying issues in the marriage. And sometimes an affair brings those issues to the forefront in a way that they may not have otherwise.

I suspect that confronting those issues and an affair at the same time is liable to cause a marriage to fail, but for those that are able to confront it head on and work through things, the end result is often a happier more honest marriage.